One of the most fertile grounds in America for solar panels looks to be big cities where by the end of 2014 a total of 1,300 megawatts have been installed – enough to power 250,000 million homes.

Although the 50 largest U.S. cities account for just a tenth of 1 percent of the country’s land area they are home to 6.5 percent of all solar photovoltaic capacity – led by the sunny cities of Los Angeles, San Diego and Phoenix. The three cities account for 435 megawatts of solar PV.

Those are among the finding in a new study “Shining Cities,” by the Frontier Group and Environment America.

Most of the leading cities are sunny places – San Jose, Honolulu, and Denver, which is in eighth place with 58 megawatts.

Also in the mix, surprisingly, is Indianapolis at number four with 107 megawatts and New York City, ninth on the list with 41 megawatts. Similarly, lower on the list, sandwiched between sun-filled Austin and
Las Vegas is Newark, N.J.Read more…

“We want to make sure we’re not pushing the envelope so far that we’re hurting consumers, especially the rural consumers,” said the sponsor, Sen. Ray Scott, R-Grand Junction.

And handing out graphs of comparative rates, Rep. Dan Thurlow, R-Grand Junction, said, “We’ve gone from being one of the lowest-cost states, to being higher than most of our neighbors in the mountain states.” The bill, however, died in the Democratic-majority House.

It is true that Xcel Energy, the state’s largest electricity provider, has had a series of rate hikes over the last few years, but $347 million in increases between 2006 and 2009 were the result of the utility’s new $1 billion Comanche 3 coal plant coming on line. A lot of the rate increases were also driven by Xcel adding long-deferred infrastructure, such as transmission lines.

Putting that aside, have wind and solar installations increased the cost of electricity? A study by Nancy Pfund and Anand Chhabara says there is no evidence to show they have.Read more…

Jay Young greets Jaxon with a kiss, even though the 8-foot alligator “tried to bite my hand off” when he first introduced himself. Photo courtesy of Jay Young.

When Jay Young says he’s busy at the moment, he means it.
“Well, I’m about three seconds away from grabbing a 7-foot alligator by the mouth,” he said Thursday. “But I can talk real quick.”

Ill-timed phone answering aside, Young, the owner of the San Luis Valley’s Colorado Gators Reptile Park, is probably the best man for the job when an alligator needs help.

Last week he drove his family’s minivan 2,200 miles in 48 hours to rescue Jaxon, the 8-foot alligator wildlife officials found in a Los Angeles backyard a few months ago. The 37-year-old gator was held in the Los Angeles Zoo, but she wasn’t working there. Young, fearing she would be put down, raced across the country to save not just Jaxon, but two other alligators recently seized by officials in southern California.

After Young retrieved Jaxon, he drove to the house where the gator had lived for 37 years. Her owner had raised her since she was a hatchling.
“She just sat there on the porch for a couple hours with Jaxon in her lap,” Young said. “Jaxon didn’t like me very much. She tried to bite me when I met her. But when she was there with the owner, she was cool as a kitten.”

The family counted Jaxon as a pet. Turns out it was an illegal pet. Officials found Jaxon in a box in the family’s backyard with two dead cats. The owner told Young – and police – that someone had been poisoning cats in her Van Nuys neighborhood and the sick cats must have crawled inside the box to die. That’s why Jaxon seemed so reticent to enter the box recently, she told Young.

“She was made out to be this monster,” Young said. “She loved Jaxon. She said ‘I thought I would be crying when you left with her but I’m really comfortable with this and I’m really happy she’s going to live with you.”

Despite reports of marijuana-hunting police in states neighboring Colorado scrutinizing cars with Colorado plates, Young didn’t get pulled over. Darn. That would have made for an interesting roadside shakedown.

But the trio of gators weren’t perfect passengers.
“I ended up wrestling alligators in the van all night trying to calm them down,” Young said.

On Thursday, Jaxon was eating fish and enjoying the geothermal pools at Young’s park.
“She’s adjusted right away,” said Young, who is building Jaxon her own habitat to keep her safe from younger, more aggressive alligators.

February 20, 2015: The “tents” reflected on the Denver Airport Westin at the Denver International Airport. February 20, 2015 Denver, CO (Photo By Joe Amon/The Denver Post)

About 13 million customers from more than 160 countries voted in the annual Skytrax global airport customer satisfaction survey, ranking airports, their staff and amenities like hotels for the annual World Airport Awards, also known as the Passenger Choice Awards.

And, turns out, travelers like Denver. They really like Denver.

DIA ranked eighth in large airports, which are those with more than 50 million passengers per year, and was one of only two Read more…

The ULA Atlas V rocket that will carry MMS to space began moving slowly towards the launch pad Wednesday morning is on the launch pad. The Atlas was assembled at ULA’s Vertical Integration Facility near Launch Pad 41 at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station. The journey between the two sites takes hours, as the rocket, with the MMS spacecraft loaded on top, inches along top a mobile platform on rails.

Alligator wrangler Jay Young, owner of the Colorado Gator Farm and Reptile Park in Mosca, Colo., prepares a large fishing net to catch what is believed to be a a 7- to 9-foot-long alligator living in Harbor Regional Park in Los Angeles on Wednesday, Aug. 17 in 2005. (AP | Nick Ut)

Colorado Gators Reptile Park to the rescue. Park owner and renowned alligator expert Jay Young will take a team to Los Angeles next month to rescue Jaxson.

“If we don’t take her, she will probably be put down,” said Young, whose parents purchased 100 baby alligators to dispose of fish parts at their geothermal-heated, Tilapia-raising ranch near the San Luis Valley’s Mosca in 1987, creating what would become one of Colorado’s most unique tourist attractions.

Young always has accepted alligators. He’s got more than 200 from across the country at his park, including the 500-pound Morris, the hand-snatching star of the movie “Happy Gilmore.” But traditionally people deliver alligators to Young, who keeps the reptiles until they reach the end of their lives, which can be 90 years.

Jaxson is about 40 years old. Young said he would have to build Jaxson her own habitat – at a cost of about $2,000 – because the younger alligators might attack her.

Colorado Gators has started a Go Fund Me campaign to help raise funds for transport from L.A. and the new habitat.

Methane leak rates from gas fields in Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas and Pennsylvania, at about 1 percent, are lower than some previous estimates, according to a new study by University of Colorado researchers.

Using sophisticated measurements taken from aircraft, the researchers assayed methane emissions on five flights over natural gas basins in 2013.

While the scans showed tens of thousands of pounds of methane leaking each hour from some equipment, the overall leak rate was calculated at around 1 percent. The research was a joint-venture of the Cooperative Institute for Research in Boulder and the National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration.

The federal Environmental Protection Agency, using inventories from oil and gas operators, has estimated the leak rate at 1.8 percent. But studies in Utah, Colorado, Texas and Pennsylvania, including some done by CIRES researchers, indicated the rates might be two to six times higher.

A Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket stands ready for launch from Cape Canaveral, Fla. On board is the Deep Space Climate Observatory, which will head to a destination one million miles away. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

SpaceX will today again attempt to launch a Falcon 9 rocket after Tuesday’s attempt (which was rescheduled from Sunday) was scrubbed due to high upper level winds. On board is DSCOVR, the joint NASA, NOAA and U.S. Air Force’s joint mission that will help scientists understand climate change and better protect Earth from the effects of solar storms.

After sending DSCOVR off to its destination one million miles away, SpaceX will then attempt to land a first-stage rocket booster onto a barge. They last attempted this on Feb. 10. Read more about both of these missions here.

If the launch doesn’t go off today, the mission will be delayed until Read more…

Maintenance is performed by workers on the Falcon 9 SpaceX rocket at launch complex 40 at the Cape Canaveral Air Force Station in Cape Canaveral, Fla., Monday, Feb. 9, 2015. (AP Photo/John Raoux)

The launch of the joint NASA, NOAA and Air Force Deep Space Climate Observatory (DSCOVR) mission and, subsequently, SpaceX’s latest attempt to land a rocket on a barge has again been delayed.

DSCOVR was originally set to launch aboard a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket on Sunday, Feb. 8. That launch was scrubbed due to issues with the Air Force’s Eastern Range radar. The next available window would have been Monday (today), but was rescheduled for Tuesday, Feb. 10 at 4:05 p.m. MST due to uncooperative weather at Cape Canaveral.

The Colorado Tourism Office last week won the best U.S. state tourism bureau award in New York City’s 2015 Travvy Awards ceremony. Sponsored by travelpulse.com and Vacation Agent Magazine, the contest harvested votes from 30,000 travel agents who named top cruise lines, rail lines, tour operators, hotels, resorts, destinations, travel agencies and tourism bureaus.

Starwood Hotels won the best hotel and resort chain. The St. Regis New York was the best city hotel in the U.S. and Canada. Visit Britain won the best country tourism bureau in Europe.

Gov. John Hickenlooper’s 2015-16 fiscal year budget requests a $3 million increase in the Colorado Tourism Office’s budget for state marketing efforts. In the governor’s 2015-16 budget, the Colorado Tourism Office estimates a $3 million increase in state marketing funds could yield $1 billion in private sector spending and a $60 million increase in state and local taxes. The Joint Budget Committee next month will weigh the office’s budget request.

David joined The Denver Post in 1999, his second go-round in the Mile High City. Since then he’s covered a variety of topics – from human services to consumer affairs – most always with an investigative bent. Currently he does investigations and banking.